The (S)talker: You Can't Escape the Inevitable

Do you find yourself creeping around the cubicle maze, trying to keep your height below the teal green walls, hoping that you will not be...

"Hey, let me tell you about what my husband did last night," says the (S)talker.

Every office has one... if you have more than one, we feel for you. The (S)talker (stalker + talker) is the co-worker that can't get enough of telling the same story, word for word to any person that gives eye contact for more than .001 of a second. They are fearless, cunning, and down right annoying. The (S)talker has no sense of time or work schedule for themself, but they know your every move - from car to building, from elevator to office, from desk to lounge, from lunch and back.

The (S)talker is relentless to a point that if you are on your phone, they will hover around until you hang up and immediately hop into a story about their poison ivy covered kids, Stetson drenched husband, nagging wives and family vacations that you can't afford to go on.

There is no escape. If you try to walk to the copier, they'll follow you. If you are in the middle of a conversation, they'll hop in off topic and shut it down. If you are microwaving your lunch, they'll pop up right behind you to say that Healthy Choice is a better frozen food brand than what you're about to eat and that her daughter went through a menstrual cycle for the first time over the weekend.

Let's face it, Batman couldn't hold a candle up to the ninja-like skills the (S)talker possesses. However, we at OrHardlyWorking came up with a few ways to delay your (S)talker from talking about how their son bowled a 215 with his lucky red jammies on.

• The Tag-Team method - since the (S)talker is pretty loud in telling their stories, one of your tag-team partners could call you on the phone, and you could act like a work emergency just came up. Please leave the area immediately without many words. "I gotta Go" should be enough

I know, only one tip. We wish we had more tips, but boy are these (S)talkers some crafty SOB's...

Tell us about the (S)talkers in your office area, and how do you get rid of them...